Archive for the ‘Ankeny’ Category

We are having a party on Saturday, July 13, following the Summerfest parade until 2pm. Food and drinks are provided. We appreciate the trust in us over the last 10 year from our customers and the Ankeny community.

We’re pleased to announce that the Hunziker Community Shred Day was a success! Mother Nature supplied beautiful conditions for the event and enabled us to shred and recycle several thousand pounds of paper. A big thanks goes out to all those who came to the event and Terri from Secure Shred Solutions. The Shred truck from Secure Shred Solutions spent time at our offices in Ankeny and Ames on April 26 and 27.

Join us for the Hunziker & Associates, REALTORS Annual Shred Day! We encourage anyone in the community to bring up to 5 boxes of shreddable items to our offices. We will have a truck from Secure Shred Solutions at our Ankeny office, 1255 N. Ankeny Blvd., on Friday, April 26 from 11am – 1pm and on Saturday, April 27 from 9am – 11am at our Ames office, 105 South 16th St. Kick off your spring cleaning by clearing out all of those old tax documents, confidential papers & any other paperwork that you shouldn’t throw out in the trash.

With so much emphasis being put on security both in terms of our identity and our finances it is important to ensure that every effort is made to make the identity thief’s job as difficult as possible. One way of doing this is to shred all documents that may contain information about you or members of your family which may allow the identity thief to build up a picture of either you as an individual or any other member of your family.

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Thank you to the many, many people who came to celebrate our 60th anniversary with us! We were thrilled to have so many real estate clients, tenants, business partners, community leaders, and friends of the Hunziker family, our employees and agents present.

Erb Hunziker began building homes in 1952 in partnership with Don Furman under the name of H&F Builders Construction Company. They operated out of the basement of the Hunziker home with a part time secretary and a few hourly employees. The emphasis was on new home construction and land development. Don ran the crew and Erb sold homes and kept the books. Nine lots were developed and six houses were built that first year. In 1954, the real estate brokerage, Hunziker & Furman Realty, was added and in 1955 they moved to 537 Main Street. During 1962/63/64, an average of 75 homes were built and 70 lots were developed. In 1968, the office at 803 24th Street was built. The partnership flourished and soon became the largest developer, builder and real estate company in Ames.

In 1995, Erb and Don decided to go their separate ways. The name changed and moved to its current location at 105 South 16th Street where it houses four (4) separate entities: Hunziker & Associates, Realtors®, Hunziker Property Management, HCS Builders Inc., and Hunziker Land Development. The real estate company expanded outside of Ames with offices in Ankeny (opened in 2003), Boone (opened in 2006) and Nevada (opened in 2007). Today, the real estate company has 35 agents (in the Ames office) and a Support Staff of 7. The property management company oversees 1100 apartments and 20 commercial properties. The construction company builds an average of 50 new homes per year.

The Hunziker Family believes in giving back to the community in a variety of ways including the United Way, the Boys & Girls Club, and Y.S.S.. Erb and Marge Hunziker were major sponsors of the Hunziker Sports Complex, Beloit Children’s Center and the DMAAC School Career Academy designed to help the high school students of Story County. Iowa State University is also a benefactor of Erb and Marge’s generosity: the Marge Hunziker House at Reiman Gardens, the Women’s Hunziker Court at the ISU Sukup basketball practice facility and the small auditorium at the Jacobson Building. Erb Hunziker passed away in April of this year, but his legacy continues within the various Hunziker Companies and the Ames community. The owners, Realtors and staff contribute their time, talent and financial support to help improve the communities in which they live & work.

These recent quotes by market experts make a strong statement about the level of recovery in the U.S. housing market. They also line up with how our local markets have been performing all year, with significant increases in sales and overall reduction in inventory levels.

“Right now the market is the strongest it’s been since the start of the downturn… we expect to see this organic growth sustain and strengthen through the end of the year.”

The growth of shopping and dining experiences in Ankeny continues to expand, and several exciting new projects are in the works.

Mills Fleet Farm will be building a new store in Ankeny this year. The store will be located just south of Dewey Ford on SE Delaware Avenue. Mills Fleet Farm carries farm, home, pet, automotive, clothing, and sporting goods.

A new “restaurant road” has been proposed for the Prairie Trail Town Center being built west of DMACC. The road would extend east of SW State Street between Orlabor Road and future Magazine Road. It would lead into the area where the new city library and city hall complex will be built and include a connecting street into the DMACC Campus.

Several businesses will also be expanding and bringing jobs into the area. The Toro Company, which sells landscape maintenance equipment, is building a new distribution center in Ankeny that will employ 20 people. Old Dominion Freight Line is also building a new complex east of the Corporate Woods interstate exchange that will add 75 new jobs over the next 5 years. The Crosswinds Business Park is also expanding. Two new streets will be added to open up an additional 125 acres for business construction.

Source: City of Ankeny Economic Development newsletter and City Council meeting minutes.

“Last month the City Council unanimously approved three development agreements to support more growth in the City’s targeted industries.

The Toro Companyannounced its plan to locate a new 450,000 square foot distribution center in Ankeny. The building will be built by Ryan Companies and leased by The Toro Company when it is completed later this year. The location will primarily distribute residential and landscape contractor turf maintenance equipment which is mostly produced at facilities in Minnesota and Nebraska. The new distribution center in Ankeny will employ approximately 20 people. Ankeny’s location at the intersection of Interstates 80 and 35 was an important factor for the company’s decision to locate in Ankeny.

Old Dominion Freight Line has developed a site plan for an approximately 30 acre parcel east of the Corporate Woods interchange with I-35. The site will accommodate a new terminal building, office and maintenance building. The total new construction is about 67,000 square feet. The company expects to add approximately 75 new positions over five years, eventually bringing its Des Moines Metro Area workforce to 180.

Denny Elwell Company is planning to build a 61,000 square foot light industrial/warehouse building for lease on SE Convenience Boulevard in the Metro North Business Park. The new building will front on I-35. The developer accessed the City of Ankeny’s Speculative Building Incentive Policy which offers a combination of property tax abatement and rebates on the new building for a period of five years.